This invention relates to a robot apparatus, a body unit thereof, and a coupling unit thereof, and more particularly, is suitably applied to an autonomic robot.
In recent years, autonomic robot apparatuses have been proposed that determine their movements based on instruction signals supplied from an external control device or surrounding image information input from a sensor attached at a predetermined position. Though such an autonomic robot apparatus receives an instruction signal from the control device or image information from the sensor, it vaguely moves in the beginning. Then, it gradually makes movements suitable for the input instruction signal and image information by repeating such movements.
That is, when the autonomic robot apparatus, receiving an instruction from the control device and image information from the sensor, vaguely moves, it sequentially stores in a internal storage means as learned data, the input instruction signal and image information as well as movement information indicating how it moves in response to these signal and information. Subsequently, when the autonomic robot apparatus makes a movement in response to the instruction signal the same as that previously received and stored in the storage means, it evaluates the past learned data stored in the storage means and the present learned data based on predetermined parameters.
As a result, if the autonomic robot apparatus determines that the present learned data has higher rating than the past learned data, it deletes the past learned data from the storage means and stores the present learned data. On the other hand, if the autonomic robot apparatus determines that the past learned data has higher rating than the present learned data, it discards the present learned data and keep the past learned data in the storage means. In this manner, by gradually writing learned data to the storage means to accumulate it therein, the autonomic robot apparatus acquires the capability of autonomically determining its movements depending on an externally provided command. In this case, the autonomic robot apparatus uses as a method of storing learned data, a centralized management method of storing the learned data in a single storage means for management.
Incidentally, some autonomic robot apparatuses are an integral type and do not require units to be removed, but those comprising a plurality of units have recently been designed. The robot apparatus comprising a plurality of units is constructed by, for example, connecting together a head unit corresponding to an animal""s head, a body unit corresponding to the animal""s body, and a manipulator unit corresponding to the animal""s legs.
In fact, the robot apparatus comprising a plurality of units is constructed by combining desired units which are selected from a group of head units including a plurality of head units, a group of body units including a plurality of body units, and a group of manipulator units including a plurality of manipulator units. Then, if, for example, the head unit must be replaced with a new one, the robot apparatus can change the combination of units by selecting a desired one from the group of head units and replacing the currently connected head unit with the selected head unit selected from the group of head units.
By the way, in the robot apparatus comprising a plurality of units, in the case of using the centralized management method as the method of storing learned data, the learned data is stored in, for example, a storage means of the body unit for management. If such a robot apparatus has obtained sufficient learned data to behave autonomically and then, for example, the manipulator unit is replaced with another manipulator unit having a different function, it is impossible that the storage means of the body unit already stores such learned data as to allow the new replaced manipulator unit to sufficiently exhibit its function. In this case, the robot apparatus must newly obtain learned data for the new replaced manipulator unit from the beginning, thereby requiring a large amount of labor and time to obtain learned data.
In view of the foregoing, It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a robot apparatus that can substantially improve usability as compared with the prior art.
In order to attain the above objects, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a robot apparatus having a plurality of component units. The robot unit includes a control means for controlling the plurality of component units, a first component unit which is electrically connected to the control means, having a first unique information associated therewith concerning the first component unit, a second component unit having a second unique information associated therewith concerning the first component unit which replaces the first component, a storage means provided for storing the first unique information and the second unique information, means for generating new unique information based upon both the first unique information and the second unique information and means for writing the new unique information into the storage means. The robot apparatus further includes a plurality of component storage means, with a first component storage means provided with the first component and a second component storage means provided with the second component and wherein the first unique information is stored in the first component storage means and the second unique information is stored in the second component storage means and the new unique information is stored in the second component storage means.
The robot apparatus further includes a plurality of control means, with a first component control means provided with the first component and a second component control means provided with the second component wherein the first component control means controls the first component means and the second component control means controls the second component. The plurality of storage means are built into the respective ones of the component units and contain at least a sensor for measuring a predetermined physical amount and outputting the results of that measurement. The plurality of storage means also store the of the output information of the sensor as input information and a movement history of each the component. The plurality of storage means stores the movement history and input information as learned data with which the coupling units make unique movements in response to the input information.
The nature, principle and utility of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like parts are designated by like reference numerals or characters.